


Even One Thing True

by tinsnip



Series: caged birds [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dark, M/M, Quiet, Vignette, and hints of, because if consent is obtained by lies, dubcon, is it?, it isn't really consent, pragmatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When life is boiled down to the pure essentials, and touch is a forbidden luxury... what price is a song?</p><p>Dark and quiet. Elim Garak, pragmatic and careful, allowing himself one indulgence, wary of what it could mean. A darker take than my usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even One Thing True

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics are courtesy of The Weepies, "[Little Bird](http://youtu.be/seeSH1wliB8)". If you like the song, please [purchase it.](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hideaway/id383784956)

_sometimes it's hard to say even one thing true_  
 _when all eyes have turned aside_  
 _they used to talk to you_  
 _and people on the street seem to disapprove_  
 _so you keep moving away and forget what you wanted to say_

* * *

They don't trust him. He knows that.

Well, they'd be fools to do so, wouldn't they, even without knowing exactly who he is, what he is. Clearly he is something _wrong:_ a leftover, a remnant of what was and what they fear could be again. He walks the corridors on quiet feet, wrapped in smiles, and every word he speaks is a lie; because of this, they avoid him, his presence, his eyes. Even the ones who smile back keep moving, their feet quick, their paths diverting elsewhere.

It's lonely. Lonely and quiet…

But that's fine. That is, in fact, preferable. Much easier to live life in a tissue of lies, spun fine, stitched tight, even if they make him untouchable.

There is one, though, who seems to thrive on his lies. To beg for them open-mouthed, to eat them and swallow them whole, and afterwards to be even hungrier, wanting more than words, arms opening...

He is not as untouchable as he'd thought. One touch leads to two, to three, to nine, and soon he spends just as much time tying the young man up in lies as he does unwrapping him, devouring him as the young man devours every word he speaks. It's a strange intimacy, with one partner open, giving and naked; with the other hidden behind layers that can't be seen, thwarting anything beyond the moment's pleasure, any attempt at _true_ touch.

The sound of his young doctor, though… that is not thwarted. His laughs, his sighs, his sobs: they're warmer than anything else he has here, and so he warms himself by them, spins his days around them, around the song in his doctor's voice.

"You're smiling," says his doctor one day, tilting his head, tucking in his chin.

"Am I?" He rests his hands on the lunch table. "How nice."

"Are you happy?"

What a question. "What do you think?"

"It's just that… it's not _so_ bad here, is it?" the doctor ventures, sliding the words to him like a tidbit offered across the table. "Is it as bad as it used to be?" _Before me?_ whisper the undertones of his voice.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just wonder… I mean, you want to go back. I know you do."

He's quiet, listening to the song's ebb and flow.

"But…" A hesitation. "Once you got there… you might miss what you'd left behind… perhaps a little?"

He smiles at his little singer. "How fanciful."

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, you know."

It's a joke, probably; certainly, his doctor's tone suggests that's so. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"A saying. Back on Earth. If you're hunting birds and you've caught one, well, you should hang on to it… don't let it go in hopes of catching the ones that might be in the bushes."

Ah. He's being instructed. Perhaps even chided. How charming. "Spoken like someone who has never caught a bird."

"I'm sorry?"

"My dear doctor," and he lets his voice circle and glide, "once you have a bird in your hand, you have every other bird."

His doctor is puzzled, eyes wide.

"All you have to do is make that bird sing."

"You can't make a bird sing—"

"Ah, but you can. You simply _squeeze—"_

—fingers clenching tight, and the doctor gasps—

"—and once you do, your bird will cry out, and all the other birds will take wing," his fingers fly open, "so that you can pick them off at your leisure."

"It's hardly a song," says his doctor, voice quavering slightly.

"Perhaps not," he says, "but it will serve…"

The remainder of the lunch passes in discussion of other matters, his doctor's eyes flickering to his hand again and again, as if against his will. It's fascinating to watch. _Do I frighten you? Even you, who lives on lies?_

Still, that night the doctor comes to his quarters, and he takes what he wants from his body, makes him sing, leaves him teary-eyed and smiling and ever so thankful. As the doctor drifts into sleep, curled against his chest, he listens to the song of his breath. Gently, softly, he runs a hand over the soft pelt, the graceful neck, the fragile hands.

_How I could make you sing, little bird_ _… and if I brought you somewhere that your song could be truly appreciated, gave you an audience of eager ears and busy styluses… if I distilled your song down to its essence, to its purity, leaving all non-essentials to dry and stain the floor… oh, what would be my reward?_

Would it be enough? Without promises… would it be worth the risk of silence, of no song at all?

His hand strokes the doctor's head. The fur is so soft.

There is no other birdsong around him… and the doctor is most certainly in his hands. He does not squeeze.

_What if you are my very last bird?_


End file.
